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'We showed exceptional spirit and desire'

on the result…The positive again is that we have shown exceptional spirit, desire and refusal to lose the game. Many players were on the fringe today and we had not completely digested the Champions League game on Wednesday night. We needed to dig deep.

The circumstances went against us on top of that because when Fulham scored I didn't see them crossing the halfway line too much in the second half. It was very unfortunate to be 1-0 down but we refused to lose the game can came back to 1-1. It's disappointing because we dropped two points but at least it keeps our unbeaten run going. on the late penalty shout…Honestly I didn't see it, I will have to look at it again. I felt the referee was in a good position, I don't know. on converting just the one chance…Maybe [it was down to] the sharpness of the mind, mental fatigue and a bit of physical fatigue as well. We haven't recovered completely from the Champions League game - that happens sometimes. But we still had the potential to win 1-0 and if not 2-0 because early on in the game we could have scored. Maybe once or twice we were offside when we should not have been. We also lacked a bit of accuracy in our passing.

on Thomas Vermaelen's eventful afternoon…I believe he scored unfortunately [at his own end] - left-footed players many times refuse to play with their right foot. But he has shown enough character to come back and score a great goal. On crosses he is very good, he reads the ball well. Overall he had a very good game.

It's unfortunate to drop two points today because overall I thought we did enough to win it.

on circumstances in the game…It was the type of game where you didn't want to be 1-0 down. We scored an own goal at 0-0 at a moment where it was all us. If we went into the final 20 minutes at 0-0 we had more chance to win the game than lose it. You feel that scoring two would have been difficult today.

on Fulham's performance…I don't blame Fulham. They are in a position where they need points and you can understand that. You have to accept that football is played by human beings and even if you prepare well you can be a bit less sharp. You can drop points against anybody in the League. If you look at the team sheet of Fulham, they are all international players in there, good players. It's not a shame that you can concede a goal against them.

Overall if you look back at where we came from we have a long unbeaten run and of course we are disappointed because we dropped two points. But I feel we are in a way of improvement and hopefully we can show that again Tuesday night.

On the problem of fatigue...It is a punctual problem because we gave a lot on Wednesday night. It is the shortest time you can get Wednesday night to Saturday afternoon. But it is not an excuse. It is an explanation. We want to be in the Champions League so we cannot cry when we are tired. Our challenge is to win these kinds of games even when we are tired.

On changing the side for Tuesday...I will have to. Some players are on the fringe muscle-wise.

On taking off Mertesacker...I wanted one more midfielder to play out from the back and create the difference. It was an offensive-minded decision.On the character they showed...We could have lost this game earlier in the season. You have to give credit to Fulham, they defended well and their goalkeeper played well. They saved the ball on the line. It happens only to us that the defenders play behind the goalkeepers. It happened at Norwich and against Fulham. But you have to give them credit for that.

Copyright 2015 The Arsenal Football Club plc. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source26 Nov 2011

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